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These Opportunity Cards appear when your Watchful quality reaches a certain level. They generally challenge the Watchful quality but some have options which test other Qualities. The links below will jump to the section of the page describing Cards which unlock at that level of Watchful Quality.

Cards which unlock between 60 and 69

The Ways of the University

The genteel battleground of Benthic and Summerset colleges. The crucible of the future.
[Unlocked with Watchful 60]

A day trip to the University

A member of the Stoats, the club for high-spirited university larks, will show you around the University. As long as you can provide for their next practical joke. You can acquire Compromising Documents by using Influence items in your inventory. [Unlocked with 1 x Compromising Document] [Unlocked with Route: the University no more than 0]

And off you go

Best not to think about what he's going to do with that…. You're on a day trip to the University. When you leave, you won't be able to return to the campus…. You have moved to a new area: The UniversityWatchful increase Lose: 1 x Compromising Document

An honorary degree!

The University authorities have invited you to accept an honorary degree! How lovely! If nothing else, this will allow you to come and go at the University as you please. This will allow permanent access to the University. The University is most interesting to those with Watchful 85+

This branch costs 5 Fate to play. [Unlocked with Route: the University no more than 0]

Requires 5 Fate

Fate-locked content must not be placed on the wiki, per the developers.

Glowing and chittering

Someone has dropped a box of glowing beetles at the University entrance. It was destined for the Esoteric Cryptozoologists but the label's fallen off the box. You should demonstrate your academic credentials before the porters grab it.

Just get the papers back

Following the trail

A footprint. A carelessly discarded spore-toffee wrapper. A few pointed conversations in the winding alleys of Spite. They cannot escape you. You recover your works, but are left with the nagging feeling that this may not be over.

Find the identity of the miscreant

Shadows and bright lights

A footprint. A carelessly discarded spore-toffee wrapper. A few pointed conversations in the winding alleys of Spite. They cannot escape you. You recover your works with a minimum of fuss.
Signs point to Mrs. Plenty's Most Distracting Carnival. You can't get a name, but you think the villain is a man who lurks there. What do carny-folk want with your ideas?

Examine the scene for evidence

Something significant?

Stabbed from behind. A cheap shiv. Wallet gone. The same story plays out a hundred times a day… hang on a moment. Shards of a broken mirror lie around the victim. There is something odd going on here. Perhaps the Constables will be interested, after all.Watchful increaseConnected: The Constables increase49 x Whispered Secret

Try to save him

What's this?

You staunch the worst of the bleeding. You remove shards of broken mirror from the wound. Interesting. You'll have some questions for this fellow when he wakes up.Watchful increase Gain: 84 x Whispered Secret

Do as he says

The grand tour

The list of subscribers is longer than you expected and the University is a maze. It’s long past four o'clock when you put the paper into the last pigeonhole. But the Professor does make it worth your while. Gain: 4 x Relic of the Second City (This reward is random, and you will receive an item or items of roughly 50 pence, such as 1 x Pirate Hat.)

Dump it in the river

Pulped

You drop the bundle in the river, collect your fee, and that seems to be that. You’d swear no-one was the wiser, if it wasn’t for the Emeritus Professor of Horology’s hurried purchase of a number of large-leafed, soft-paged books. Still, he doesn’t pursue the matter.Watchful increase Gain: 14 x Relic of the Fourth City

Improve the newsletter

Making headlines

The gazette is improved vastly by the addition of a vitriolic attack on the Dean of the Medical Faculty and his private ‘experiments’ with some of the students. This goes down extremely well with your fellows, and not at all with the poor Dean, who’s never experimented in his life.Persuasive increase Gain: 37 x Greyfields 1882

Accept the case

Good enough for government work

As expected, it was a revolutionary cell that took the texts. They escape into the Flit mere minutes ahead of you: you find the stash of stolen texts hastily abandoned. You hand them over and are paid agreed. You do take a tiny peek first.Watchful increase Gain: 49 x Deep Amber Gain: 10 x Cryptic Clue

Accept the case, but…

'I'm afraid they eluded me…'

As expected, it was a revolutionary cell who took the texts.They escape into the Flit mere minutes ahead of you: you find the stash of stolen texts hastily abandoned. Not that you tell the Ministry that, of course… Gain: 21 x Proscribed Material Subtle increase

Investigate the Topsy King's court

The Constables don't go into the Flit, but there are rumours of revolution. They're sending in a detective.Unlocked with Watchful 69

Spy on the Raggedy Men

The Raggedy Men are the beggars of the Topsy King's aerial court in the Flit. They generally squabble, cackle and eat rats. What else to they get up to?Unlocks with Route: The Flit 1
(Watchful challenge; straightforward at 76)

Rags and silk

They bicker. They catch and eat a great many rats. They admire the Topsy King's impressive collection of paintings. They occasionally wander off and do some begging. They allow criminals to store stolen silk in bundles hanging from the court. The Constables pay you for the information. Gain: 69 x Rostygold

Spy on the dealings with revolutionaries

What are they planning?

For one with eyes to see them, anarchists are everywhere in the Flit. Despite their aerial exile there is a spirit of quiet confidence around the sky-bridges and bat-coops. They are planning something. You spot a few notorious revolutionaries tying intricate knots in the ropes surrounding the Topsy King's court. Is that some sort of cipher? The Constables receive your report with great interest.Watchful increaseConnected: The Constables increase Gain: 64 x Rostygold

Anarchists. Hundreds of them.

For one with eyes to see them, anarchists are everywhere in the Flit….Watchful increaseNightmares increase

Map the new heavens

The Bewhiskered Astrologer is devising an alternative zodiac based on shifting patterns of city lights. 'There are clear cycles of which windows are lit and when — the future is ours to predict!'Unlocked with Watchful 69

Suggest a symbol

‘Why, so it does!’

A magnificent symbol, tying perfectly into the arcs of prophecy that the Astrologer has been plotting. He rewards you handsomely for your insight. ‘This will show that charlatan Shoshana!’Watchful increase Gain: 14 x Stolen Correspondence
I got 22 Surface Currency, maybe this is a random reward?

Sneak in a symbol

The perfect jape

He didn’t notice a thing. Only you know why a number of the predictions are so risqué. Placing bets on them doesn't hurt your purse, either…Watchful increaseSubtle increase Gain: 120 x Rostygold Gain: 68 x Rat on a StringI received 120 Rostygold and Iron Wrist Manacles, so most likely the last part of the reward is random.

An eye for society

An old familiar tale

Your target is a little shallow and has moderately vile taste in hats. You dig deeper. It seems that they have been currying favour with a seamstress, manipulating servants and seducing certain other parties for gain. It's enough to satisfy the editor, and you are sent a case of wine for your efforts.

Just who is Mr. Slowcake?

A man of infernal character

Mr. Slowcake is a fiction. Specifically, he is the invention of a cabal of devils. It takes all your skill to tear through the misdirections and subterfuges, but you are convinced. The force behind Slowcake's Exceptionals is the Brass Embassy. Of course, this raises more questions than it answers.

A slippery character

Mr. Slowcake has no address. He makes no appearances. He is a member of no clubs and no academic societies. He does not deign to visit the offices of the book's writers or publishers. Perhaps he doesn't exist at all.

Go for a stroll on the heath

Braving dampness and mud

It seems that, this month, it is fashionable for spies to use the heath for message drops. They rely solely on the fog for obscurity. A careful search of mushroom-patches and a rusted bandstand reveals a handful of interesting letters.

What are they up to?

Clay and air

From the outskirts of the heath, you see a dirigible descend into the fog. You find your way to it by sound more than sight: men are loading heavy crates into the vessel. An argument breaks out: there is too much cargo for the dirigible to lift off. One crate is hidden under a bush and the dirigible departs. Clay tablets? Well, they do look valuable…

Publish a respectable article

If only they knew

The article is published on schedule and generates a pleasing ripple of interest among academics. Of course, it's not the full extent of your work, but the world is hardly ready for that just yet. What you published is enough to get you a few lucrative speaking engagements, anyway.

Publish a radical monograph

It lives!

Of course, half the field won't understand your work, but those few that can appreciate your true genius are even now coming to you with questions and secrets. It appears that you have showed them all. Furthermore, it seems very unlikely that they will laugh at you again.

Find the printing press

Blood and money

If counterfeiters wish to live more than a week, they must be nervous beyond paranoia. You find an abandoned printing press in a butcher's pantry, but there's no sign of its owners. You help yourself to the sample currency. You're fairly sure it's the real thing.Watchful increase Gain: 27 x Surface Currency

Develop a method for detecting false Echoes

Science and politics

A working device to prove the authenticity of banknotes is still some way off. You show your preliminary designs to the Constables. Shortly afterwards, an inspector presents you with funds for further research. The Masters are intrigued, you hear. You also receive an anonymous letter that details at some length what unsympathetic men with knives will do to you if this thing ever sees production. Gain: 125 x RostygoldConnected: Criminals decrease (by quite a few change points, perhaps 30)Watchful increase

Learn of the Overgoat

A double handful of shrill legends

The Overgoat! Spawn of a Master and a feather-gartered-demon at the Feast of the Exceptional Rose! Guardian of the Bazaar's deepest cellar! It consumes smoke and defecates flame! It rises like flies and walks on the cavern roof! It ate the tongue of the King with a Hundred Hearts! It can only be tamed by the child who has one green eye and one blue! In its roar is heard the voice of the Old God of the Cavern! In its heart burns the fire of the first candle!
… and so on. Grains of truth in oceans of rumour.

A bleak and flickering silence

They turn their eyes from you when you speak its name. 'I hear the bleating in the night,' one says. 'Five churns of wolf-milk soured. My daughter woke with a cast in her good eye. May its shadow pass from us!'

"The Overgoat returns "

Its teeth are red and its eyes are rolling. Best leave it alone tonight, with extra hay. Still, it brings with it a secret torn from the skin of the Bazaar itself, a wild and terrible song of mourning for a lost love. It must have climbed halfway up the spires to find this.